President Obama and Abortion by Guest Columnist

By Dr. George Sochan

One of the most significant documents in world history is the Declaration of Independence, which, when it was penned and signed, was a revolutionary document. The first two paragraphs put forth such principles as limited government and inalienable rights. One inalienable right is that of life, which is guaranteed by the Constitution in the Fifth Amendment and in the Fourteenth Amendment. Unfortunately, today, as in the past, the inalienable right to life has not always been protected by the federal and the state governments. Today the group denied governmental protection of life comprises persons still in the womb who are about to be born. As Barack Obama enters Washington, DC for his inauguration, many Americans have warranted, reasonable concerns that the federal government will lessen its support for the right to life of about-to-be-born citizens.

As usual, abortion did not receive much attention during the campaign; for instance, there was very little discussion of this issue during the debates. However, some statements made by the president-elect at that time and his brief career in the Illinois Senate may provide enough information to indicate what an Obama administration would portend on this matter. On 31 March 2008 at a rally in Jonestown, Pennsylvania, Obama stressed the importance of sex education that includes more than abstinence-training. In an unprepared remark, he stated, "Look, I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." Many members of the Pro-Life Movement were horrified, and even disgusted, that Obama would consider pregnancy a punishment. In whatever way one may view a pregnancy, including one resulting from a rape, it is essential to perceive two lives in this condition. Relieving a woman of a pregnancy by an abortion because the condition is considered some sort of unwanted burden ultimately deprives another person, who is about to be born, of his or her life. Apparently, Obama would continue support for abortions for those persons who assign a negative value to any given pregnancy.

During the summer of the campaign and peaking in August 2008, some interest was generated on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Acts. Such laws were passed by certain state legislatures and Congress during 2000-2003 because, according to testimony given in a House of Representatives’ committee report, "physicians at Christ Hospital have performed numerous ‘induced abortions’ or ‘live-birth’ abortions, a procedure in which physicians use drugs to induce premature labor and deliver unborn children, many of whom are still alive, and then simply allow those who are born alive to die." To countervail a cultural environment in America which has permitted medical staff to allow a born-alive human to die, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in August 2002. This law asserts that a "member of the species homo sapiens" includes "every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development…regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion." Being defined as a human who has been born alive in the United States would afford such a living being of citizenship and, hence, protection under federal and state laws. At the same time that the federal government passed its version of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, Obama, as a state senator, repeatedly opposed a similar law in Illinois because he claimed that the Illinois law would have undermined Roe v. Wade, which, until President Bush had signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, had included the killing of infants who have been almost completely extracted from the mother.

The killing of a born-alive infant and even the killing of a baby that is in the process of being born, as in being partially extracted from the mother’s body, should be considered murder. Such an obvious ethical determination should be so obvious that, as the website Religious Tolerance suggests, "One wonders who could possibly be against it." Apparently, based on his record of non-accomplishments in the protection of life for certain persons, Barack Obama is against "it." He seems to be like millions and millions of Americans who live their lives day by day without more than a rhetorical concern for the thousands of defenseless, about-to-be-born Americans that are slaughtered in abortion centers day after day. After noon on January 20, 2009 the difference between Obama and most Americans is that he will have a powerful position in the government. As president, Obama will be in a position to affect some change, whether for good or ill, on the protection of life for the about-to-be-born Americans. A negative change from the little that had been achieved during the Bush years would obfuscate even further the supposedly self-evident truth that the right to life for all humans is inalienable in the United States and protected by the government.

George Sochan
Assistant Professor
Bowie State University